Acceptable Risk

5

Saturday, July 23, 1994

Kim awakened in stages. Even before she had opened her eyes she heard Edward’s voice. At first she’d incorporated it into her dream, but then, as she’d become more conscious, she realized it was coming from the other room.

With some difficulty Kim opened her eyes. First she made sure that Edward was not in bed, then she glanced at the clock. It was 5:45 a.m.

Settling back into the pillow and feeling concerned that something was wrong, Kim tried to hear what was being said, but she couldn’t. Edward’s voice was unintelligible, yet from its timbre Kim could tell that he was excited.

Within a few minutes Edward returned. He was dressed in a bathrobe. As he tiptoed across the room en route to the bathroom, Kim told him she was awake. Changing directions, he came over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I’ve got great news,” Edward whispered.

“I’m awake,” Kim repeated. “You can speak normally.”

“I was just talking to Eleanor,” Edward said.

“At five forty-five in the morning?” Kim questioned. “Who on earth is Eleanor?”

“She’s one of my postdocs,” Edward said. “She’s my right-hand person in the lab.”

“This seems awfully early for shop talk,” Kim said. Involuntarily she thought of Grace Traters, her father’s supposed assistant.

“She pulled an all-nighter,” Edward said. “Kevin sent over several more sclerotia from the new fungus last night. Eleanor stayed to prepare and run a crude sample through the mass spectrometer. The alkaloids don’t seem to be the same as those in Claviceps purpurea. In fact they appear to be three totally new alkaloids.”

“I’m happy for you,” Kim said. It was far too early for her to say much else.

“The most exciting thing is that I know at least one of them is psychoactive,” Edward said. “Hell, all three might be.” He rubbed his hands excitedly as if he were about to get to work that instant.

“I can’t tell you how important this could be,” Edward continued. “We could have a new drug here, or even a whole family of new drugs. Even if they prove not to be clinically useful, they’ll undoubtedly be valuable as research tools.”

“I’m glad,” Kim said. She rubbed her eyes; she wanted to get into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

“It’s amazing how often serendipity plays a role in drug discovery,” Edward said. “Imagine finding a drug because of the Salem witch trials. That’s even better than the way Prozac was discovered.”

“That was by accident?” Kim asked.

“I should say.” Edward laughed. “The main researcher responsible was playing around with antihistamines and testing them in an experimental protocol that measured the effect on the neurotransmitter, norepinephrine. By serendipity he ended up with Prozac, which is not an antihistamine, and affects serotonin, another neurotransmitter, two hundred times more than it affects norepinephrine.”

“That’s amazing,” Kim said, but she’d not been listening. Without having had her morning coffee, her mind wasn’t prepared for such intricacies.

“I can’t wait to get working on these new alkaloids,” Edward said.

“Do you want to change your mind about going up to Salem?” Kim asked.

“No!” Edward said without hesitation. “I want to see that grave. Come on! As long as you’re awake, let’s go!” He gave Kim a playful shake of her leg through the covers.

After showering, blow-drying her hair, and applying makeup, Kim left Edward’s apartment with him for another greasy but tasty breakfast in Harvard Square. Following their meal, they stopped into one of the many bookstores in the square. Their breakfast conversation had included a discussion of Puritanism. They both realized how little they knew about it, so they bought a few appropriate books. It was well after nine by the time they were on their way to the North Shore.

Kim drove, since they were again reluctant to leave her car in the residents-only parking area in front of Edward’s apartment. With no traffic they made good time and were in Salem just before ten. Following the same route they had the previous Saturday, they again passed the Witch House.

Edward reached out and grabbed Kim’s arm. “Have you ever visited the Witch House?” he asked her.

“A long time ago,” Kim said. “Why? Are you interested?”

“Don’t laugh, but I am,” Edward said. “Would you mind taking a few minutes?”

“Not at all,” Kim said. She turned on Federal Street and parked near the courthouse. When they walked back they found they had to wait. The Witch House opened at ten. They also weren’t the only prospective visitors. There were a number of families and several couples already standing outside the old building.

“It is amazing the appeal the Salem witch trials have,” Kim commented. “I wonder if people stop to think why it interests them so much.”

“Your cousin Stanton described the episode as ghoulishly seductive,” Edward said.

“That sounds like Stanton,” Kim said.

“He said the attraction is that it’s a window on the supernatural,” Edward added. “I happen to agree. Most people are a bit superstitious, and the witchcraft story titillates their imaginations.”

“I agree,” Kim said. “But I’m afraid there’s also something perverse about the appeal. The fact that people were executed is key. Also, I don’t think it was an accident that there were many more witches than wizards. There’s a gender bias as well.”

“Now don’t get too far out on any feminist plank,” Edward said. “I think there were more females involved because of the role of women in colonial culture. Obviously they were associated with birth and death, and health and disease, a lot more than men, and those aspects of life were shrouded with superstition and the occult. They simply didn’t have any other explanation for them.”

“I think we’re both right,” Kim said. “I agree with you, but I’ve also been impressed with the little research I’ve done about the lack of legal status of women in Elizabeth’s time. The men were scared, and they took it out on the women. Misogyny was involved.”

At that moment the door to the Witch House opened. Greeting them was a young woman in period costume. It was then that Kim and Edward learned that the visit to the house was a guided tour. Everyone trooped into the parlor and waited for the talk to begin.

“I thought we would be allowed to wander around by ourselves,” Edward whispered.

“I did too,” Kim replied.

They listened while the young woman described the many furnishings in the room, including a Bible box which was said to be an invariable part of a Puritan household.

“I’m losing interest,” Edward whispered. “Maybe we should go.”

“Fine with me,” Kim said agreeably.

They exited the building. When they reached the street, Edward turned around and faced the house.

“The reason I wanted to go in was to see how much the interior resembled the cottage,” Edward said. “It’s amazing. It is as if they were built from the same plans.”

“Well, as you said, individuality wasn’t encouraged back then,” Kim remarked.

They climbed back into the car and drove the rest of the way to the compound. The first thing Edward saw was the utility trench. He was amazed at its length. It now stretched from near the castle all the way to the cottage. When they stood at the edge, they could see that it had already been tunneled under the cottage’s foundation.

“There’s the coffin,” Kim said as she pointed to the place where it protruded. At that point the trench had been significantly widened.

“What a stroke of luck,” Edward said. “It looks to me like the head of the coffin. And you were right about the depth. It’s at least eight feet down, maybe more.”

“The trench is only deep here by the cottage,” Kim pointed out. “Where it crosses the field it’s much shallower.”

“You’re right,” Edward said. He started walking away from the house.

“Where are you going?” Kim asked. “Don’t you want to take a look at the headstone?”

“I’m going to take a closer look at the coffin,” Edward said. As soon as he could manage it, Edward jumped into the trench, then came walking back, descending deeper with each step.

Kim watched him with growing concern. She was beginning to worry about what he had in mind.

“Are you sure this thing won’t cave in?” Kim asked nervously. She could hear bits of dirt and stones fall into the crevice when she got too close to the edge.

Edward didn’t answer. He was already bending down and examining the damaged end of the coffin. Scraping some of the immediately adjacent dirt into his hand, he felt it.

“This is encouraging,” he said. “It’s bone-dry down here and amazingly cool.” He then insinuated his fingers into the partially opened joint between the head of the coffin and its side. With a sharp yank the headpiece bent to the side.

“Good God!” Kim murmured to herself.

“Would you get the flashlight from the car?” Edward said. He was looking into the open end of the coffin.

Kim did as she was told, but she wasn’t happy about what was happening. She didn’t like the idea of disturbing Elizabeth’s grave any more than it already had been. After venturing as close to the edge of the trench as she dared, she tossed the flashlight down to Edward.

Edward shined the light into the open end of the coffin. “We’re in luck,” he said. “The corpse has been mummified by the cold and the dryness. Even the winding sheet is intact.”

“I think we’ve done enough,” Kim said. But she might as well have been talking to the trees. Edward wasn’t listening. To her horror she watched while he put the light down and reached into the coffin. “Edward! What are you doing?”

“I’m just going to slide the body out a little way,” he explained. He got hold of the head and began to pull. Nothing happened, so he put one foot against the wall of the trench and pulled harder. To his surprise the head detached suddenly, causing Edward to fall against the opposite wall of the trench. He ended up in a sitting position with Elizabeth’s mummified head in his lap. A small shower of dirt dusted down onto his own head.

Kim felt weak. She had to look away.

“My gosh,” Edward said as he got to his feet. He glanced at the base of Elizabeth’s head. “I guess her neck must have been broken when she was hanged. That’s kinda surprising since the method of death in those days was not to cause the neck to break but rather let the person dangle and die of strangulation.”

Edward put the head down and bent the end of the coffin back to its original position. Using a rock, he hammered it into place. When he was convinced he’d returned it to its original appearance, he carried the head back down the trench to where he could climb out.

“I hope you don’t think this is funny,” Kim said when he’d joined her. She refused to look at the object. “I want that put back!”

“I will,” Edward promised. “I just want to take a little sample. Let’s go inside and see if we can find a box.”

Exasperated, Kim led the way. She marveled how she allowed herself to get involved in such situations. Edward sensed her attitude and quickly found an appropriately sized plumbing supply box. He put the head into it and put it in the car. Coming back into the house, he said eagerly, “Okay, let’s have a tour.”

“I want that head put back as soon as possible,” Kim said.

“I will,” Edward said again. To change the subject he walked into the lean-to portion of the house and pretended to admire the studding. Kim followed him. Soon her attention was diverted. There had been significant progress in the renovation. They even discovered the cellar floor had already been poured.

“I’m glad I got my dirt samples when I did,” Edward said.

When they were on the second floor inspecting the work being done to install the half-bath, Kim heard a car pull up. Looking out one of the casement windows, her heart skipped a beat. It was her father.

“Oh, no!” Kim said. An uncomfortable anxiety spread through her that brought instant moisture to her palms.

Edward sensed her discomfiture immediately. “Are you embarrassed because I’m here?” he asked.

“Heavens, no!” Kim said. “It’s because of Elizabeth’s grave. Please don’t let on about the head. The last thing I want is to give him an excuse to interfere with this renovation project.”

They descended the stairs and stepped outside. John was standing at the edge of the trench, looking down at Elizabeth’s coffin. Kim made the introductions. John was polite but curt. He took Kim aside.

“It’s a bloody unfortunate coincidence for George Harris to blunder onto this grave,” he said. “I told him to keep it quiet, and I trust you will do the same. I don’t want your mother to find out about this. It’ll put her in a tailspin. She’ll be sick for a month.”

“There’s no reason for me to tell anyone,” Kim said.

“Frankly I’m surprised that it is here,” John said. “I’d been told that Elizabeth had been buried in a common grave someplace west of Salem center. What about this stranger you have here? Does he know about the grave?”

“Edward is not a stranger,” Kim said. “And yes, he knows about the grave. He even knows about Elizabeth.”

“I thought we had an understanding that you wouldn’t be telling people about Elizabeth,” John said.

“I didn’t tell him,” Kim said. “Stanton Lewis did.”

“God damn your mother’s side of the family,” John mumbled as he turned around and walked back to where Edward was patiently waiting.

“The story of Elizabeth Stewart is privileged information,” John said to Edward. “I hope you will respect that.”

“I understand,” Edward said evasively. He wondered what John would say if he knew about the head in the car.

Seemingly satisfied, John diverted his attention to the cottage. At Kim’s suggestion he deigned to look briefly at the construction. It was a quick tour. Back outside he hesitated as he was about to leave. Looking at Edward he said, “Kim’s a fine, sensible girl. She’s very warm and loving.”

“I think so too,” Edward said.

John got into his car and drove off. Kim watched him until the car disappeared in the trees. “He has such an uncanny ability to irritate me,” Kim fumed. “The problem is he doesn’t even realize how belittling it is to be treated like a teenager and called a girl.”

“At least he was being complimentary,” Edward said.

“Complimentary my foot!” Kim said. “That was a self-serving comment. It was his way of trying to take credit for the way I’ve turned out. But he had nothing to do with it. He was never there for me. He has no clue that being a real father or husband is a lot more than providing food and shelter.”

Edward put his arm around Kim’s shoulder. “It’s not going to accomplish anything to get yourself all worked up about it now,” he said.

Kim abruptly turned to Edward. “I had an idea last night,” she said. “What about you moving into the cottage with me come September first?”

Edward stumbled over his words. His stutter reappeared. “That’s very generous,” he managed to say.

“I think it is a wonderful idea,” Kim said. “This place has more than enough space, and you have to find a new apartment anyway. What do you say?”

“Thank you,” Edward stammered. “I don’t know quite what to say. Maybe we should talk about it.”

“Talk about it?” Kim questioned. She’d not expected to be rejected. Flowers from Edward were still arriving at her apartment on a daily basis.

“I’m just afraid you are inviting me impulsively,” Edward explained. “I guess I’m afraid you’ll change your mind and then not know how to disinvite me.”

“Is that really your reason for feeling reluctant?” Kim asked. She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a hug. “Okay,” she added. “We can talk about it. But I’m not going to change my mind.”

Later, when they had exhausted discussing the renovation, Kim asked Edward if he’d be willing to spend a little time up at the castle going through the old papers. She explained that his comment the previous evening about discovering the nature of the evidence used against Elizabeth had given her a renewed impetus. Edward said he didn’t mind in the slightest and that he was happy to accompany her.

Arriving at the castle, Kim suggested they try the attic instead of the wine cellar. Edward was initially agreeable, but when they got up there, they discovered it was extremely hot. Even after opening the dormer windows, it was still uncomfortable. Edward quickly lost interest.

“Why do I have the feeling you’re not enjoying this?” Kim said. Edward had taken a drawer over to the window, but instead of searching through it, he was staring outside.

“I guess I’m preoccupied with the new alkaloids,” Edward said. “I’m eager to get to the lab to work on them.”

“Why don’t you drive back to town and go do your thing?” Kim said. “I’ll take the train back later.”

“Good idea,” Edward said. “But I’ll take the train.”

After a mini-argument which Edward won because there was no way for Kim to get to the train station later that afternoon, they walked back to the cottage and climbed into the car. Halfway to their destination, Kim suddenly remembered Elizabeth’s head in the backseat.

“No problem,” Edward said. “I’m taking it with me.”

“On the train?” Kim asked.

“Why not,” Edward said. “It’s in a box.”

“I want that back up here ASAP,” Kim said. “They’ll be filling in that trench as soon as the utilities are in.”

“I’ll be finished with it in no time,” Edward assured her. “I’m just hoping there’s something in it to sample. If there isn’t maybe I could try for the liver.”

“We’re not going back into that coffin for anything but to put this head back,” Kim said. “Not with my father hovering around. To make matters worse, he is apparently in contact with the contractor.”

Kim dropped Edward off at the top of the stairs that led down to the train station. Edward lifted the plumbing supply box off the backseat.

“Want to meet for dinner?” Edward asked.

“I think not,” Kim said. “I’ve got to get back to my apartment. I’ve got laundry to do, and I’ve got to get up early for work.”

“Let’s at least talk on the phone,” Edward said.

“It’s a deal,” Kim said.

As much as Edward relished spending time with Kim, he was glad to get back to his lab. He was especially happy to see Eleanor, whom he did not expect to be there. She’d gone home, showered, and slept, but only for four or five hours. She said she was too excited to stay away.

The first thing she did was show him the mass spectrometry results. She was now certain that they were dealing with three new alkaloids. After talking with him that morning she’d spent time researching the results; there was no way they could have been made by any known compounds.

“Are there any more sclerotia?” Edward asked.

“A few,” Eleanor said. “Kevin Scranton said more will be on their way, but he didn’t know when. I didn’t want to sacrifice the ones we have until I’d spoken with you. How do you want to separate the alkaloids? With organic solvents?”

“Let’s use capillary electrophoresis,” Edward said. “If necessary we can go to micellular electrokinetic capillary chromatography.”

“Should I run a crude sample like I did with the mass spec?” Eleanor asked.

“No,” Edward said. “Let’s extract the alkaloids with distilled water and precipitate them with a weak acid. That’s what I did over at the biological labs and it worked fine. We’ll get purer samples, which will make structural work easier.”

Eleanor started toward her bench space, but Edward grabbed her arm. “Before you start on the extraction I want you to do something else,” he said. With no preamble he opened the plumbing supply box and lifted out the mummified head. Eleanor recoiled at the ghoulish sight.

“You could have warned me,” she said.

“I suppose I could have,” Edward said with a laugh. For the first time he looked at the head with a critical eye. It was rather lurid. The skin was dark brown, almost mahogany in color. It had dried to a leathery texture and retracted over the bony prominences, exposing the teeth in a gruesome smile. The hair was dried and matted like steel wool.

“What is it?” Eleanor asked. “An Egyptian mummy?”

Edward told Eleanor the story. He also explained that the reason he’d brought the head to the lab was to see if there was anything in the cranial vault to sample.

“Let me guess,” Eleanor said. “You want to run it through the mass spec.”

“Exactly,” Edward said. “It would be scientifically elegant if we could show peaks corresponding to the new alkaloids. It would be definitive proof that this woman ingested the new mold.”

While Eleanor ran over to the Department of Cell Biology to borrow anatomical dissection instruments, Edward faced the graduate students and assistants who had come in for the day and were nervously biding their time waiting for his attention. He answered all their questions in turn and sent them back to their experiments. By the time he was through, Eleanor was back.

“An anatomy instructor told me we should take the whole calvarium off,” Eleanor said. She held up an electric vibratory saw.

Edward set to work. He reflected the scalp and exposed the skull. Then he took the saw and cut off a skullcap. He and Eleanor looked inside. There wasn’t much. The brain had contracted to a congealed mass in the back of the skull.

“What do you think?” Edward asked. He poked the mass with the tip of a scalpel. It was hard.

“Cut out a piece and I’ll get it to dissolve in something,” Eleanor said.

Edward did as she suggested.

Once they had the sample, they began to try various solvents. Unsure of what they had, they began to introduce them into the mass spectrometer. By the second sample they had a match. Several of the peaks corresponded exactly with those of the new alkaloids in the crude extract that Eleanor had run the night before.

“Isn’t science great?” Edward commented gleefully.

“It’s a turn-on,” Eleanor agreed.

Edward went over to his desk and called Kim’s apartment. As he anticipated, he got the answering machine. After the beep sounded he left a message that for Elizabeth Stewart the devil in Salem had been explained scientifically.

Hanging up the phone, Edward glided back to Eleanor. He was in a rare mood.

“All right, enough of this fooling around,” he said. “Let’s get down to some real science. Let’s see if we can separate these new alkaloids so we can figure out what we have.”

“This is impossible,” Kim said. She pushed the drawer of a file cabinet closed with her hip. She was hot, dusty, and frustrated. After taking Edward to the train station, she’d returned to the attic in the castle and had made a four-hour general inspection from the servants’ wing all the way around to the guest wing. Not only hadn’t she found anything significant, she hadn’t even found any seventeenth-century material at all.

“This is not going to be an easy task,” Kim said. Her eyes scanned the profusion of file cabinets, trunks, boxes, and bureaus that stretched as far as she could see until the attic made a right-hand turn. She was daunted by the sheer volume of material. There was even more in the attic than there was in the wine cellar. And like the wine cellar there was no order in terms of subject matter or chronology. Sequential pages varied as much as a century, and the subject matter bounced back and forth among mercantile data, business records, domestic receipts, official governmental documents, and personal correspondence. The only way to go through it all was page by page.

Confronted by such reality, Kim began to appreciate the good luck she’d had in finding James Flanagan’s 1679 letter to Ronald Stewart that Monday. It had given her the false impression that researching Elizabeth in the castle would be an enjoyable if not easy undertaking.

Finally hunger, exhaustion, and discouragement temporarily overwhelmed Kim’s commitment to discover the nature of the conclusive evidence used against Elizabeth. Badly in need of a shower, Kim descended from the attic and emerged into the late afternoon summer heat. Climbing into the car, she began the trek back to Boston.